Wednesday, October 1, 2003

Try a different view about kids riding buses

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

Parents who live in one development on Fayetteville's far-western fringes have found an economical, reasonably safe and healthy alternative to get their children to and from school each day.

They take the bike path.

Stonebrier is a sprawling neighborhood that straddles Lester Road between Ga. Highway 54 and Ebenezer Church Road. Popular with new home buyers even in the recent economic blahs, Stonebrier is made more attractive because it is served by brand-new Cleveland Elementary, connected to hundreds of homes via asphalt-paved paths designed for biking or walking, installed by the developer.

Sound familiar? Stonebrier's foot-powered transportation network is inspired, or course, by Peachtree City's extensive path system (80-plus miles and counting, the city says, but who's counting?).

The difference here is that children use the path to get to and from Cleveland Elementary. Some parents walk or drive their younger ones to school via golf carts (though Stonebrier has no golf course), but many of the older students suck it up and make the trek on their own, brave kids that they are.

Venture another three or four miles to the west and things change. Despite having access to a cart path system that, whether by design or not, allows for kids to walk anywhere they could desire, including school, parents recoil in horror at the suggestion.

That's what transportation managers with the Fayette County School System found out back in August, when they trimmed back what was essentially door-to-door bus service in favor of a more economical approach.

It seems like forever ago now, but the uproar that ensued led to protests and formation of a citizen's task force on transportation routes that passed along several ideas on policy change. Those are now in the hands of the school board, which will likely act on them at the Oct. 20 meeting.

Those changes will assume that most everybody, in Peachtree City at least, wants a ride, no walking, thank you very much.

This is laughable to people who live in the rest of Fayette County, that those nutty Peachtree City residents fear taking full advantage of the one amenity it is perhaps most famous for.

But the irony doesn't end there.

Across the country, more and more cash-strapped school districts are cutting transportation funding. Out in California, where the state deficit alone is twice the size of Georgia's annual budget, many school boards have scrapped bus service altogether.

Even in places as frigid as Minnesota, old yellow is being replaced by school walking clubs which have the extra benefit of physical fitness.

"The Walking School Bus" designates an adult who picks up each child at his or her front door at a specific time, then reverses the route in the afternoon. As kids walk together, they have time to talk and get exercise, too.

According to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 85 percent of trips to school are by car or school bus, and only 13 percent are on foot or by bike.

Recently, the American Journal of Public Health and the American Journal of Health Promotion reported that the number of overweight children ages 6 to 11 has doubled in the last 25 years. According to the New York Times, the average 11-year-old today weighs 11 pounds more than in 1973.

Such statistics are worth no more than a single scoop at Marble Slab, in my opinion, but do provide fodder for the "new urbanist" movement of live-work-play communities that are cropping up everywhere, including here (re: The Villages at LaFayette Park in Fayetteville).

The CDC is encouraging communities nationwide to make roads safe for kids to bike or walk to school by repairing old sidewalks or building new ones. The city of Nashville has budgeted $55 million over the past three years and plans to spend another $230 million in the next decade building walks to schools, the New York Times reported. Reason: Research that showed 71 percent of parents with school-age children walked to school themselves as children, but only 18 percent of their own children walk to school.

Put in the national context, the outpouring of anger by local parents over cuts in school bus service last month looks even more foolish, especially now that the reality of this and future school budgets has become clearer. Just since mid-August, when the bus route "conspiracy" first reared its ugly head, here's what your Board of Education has done to pay the bills:

1. Raised your taxes by more than 12 percent.

2. Depleted the rainy day fund by $10 million.

3. Borrowed $8.5 million from Wachovia to meet September payroll.

And this is just the start.

Georgia Superintendent of Schools (and Peachtree City's own) Kathy Cox agreed with me last month that the state shares part of the blame, if you will, for cuts in bus service. But millions more in funding cuts are due next year as well, and the local district will have some very tough decisions to make again.

You would assume that Cox, a Peachtree City resident, is sympathetic to her neighbors. Maybe. After all, she did fault the school board for not fully considering the consequences of their budget cuts.

But she also suggested that Fayette Countians who've grown accustomed to excessive services will have to face the reality of this new economy sooner or later.

If you want to see how it's done, drive over to Lester Road.

And find a good pair of walking shoes.